Alaa is just one of the tens of thousands of political prisoners who have languished in the jail cells of Dictator Sisi - for peacefully expressing their opinions, or for opposing the military dictatorship.

Authorities at a maximum security prison in Cairo that holds many political prisoners routinely abuse inmates in ways that may have contributed to some of their deaths.

Staff at Scorpion Prison beat inmates severely, isolate them in cramped
“discipline” cells, cut off access to families and lawyers, and
interfere with medical treatment, according to the 80-page report, “‘We Are in Tombs’: Abuses in Egypt’s Scorpion Prison.”

The report documents cruel and inhuman treatment by officers of Egypt’s
Interior Ministry that probably amounts to torture in some cases and
violates basic international norms for the treatment of prisoners.

The abuse in Scorpion, where inmates are held in cells without beds
or items for basic hygiene, has persisted with almost no oversight from
prosecutors and other watchdogs, behind a wall of secrecy kept in place
by the Interior Ministry.

“Scorpion Prison sits at the end of the state’s repressive
pipeline, ensuring that political opponents are left with no voice and
no hope,” said Joe Stork,
deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“Its purpose seems to be little more than a place to throw government
critics and forget them.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 relatives of inmates held in
Scorpion, two lawyers, and one former prisoner, and reviewed medical
files and photos of sick and deceased prisoners.

Since July 2013, when Egypt’s military, led by then-Defense Minister
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, overthrew Mohamed Morsy, the country’s first
freely elected leader and a high-ranking Muslim Brotherhood member, the
Egyptian authorities have engaged in one of the widest arrest campaigns
in the country’s modern history, targeting a broad spectrum of political
opponents.

Relatives said that conditions in Scorpion deteriorated drastically
in March 2015, when al-Sisi, who was elected president in 2014,
appointed Magdy Abd al-Ghaffar as interior minister. Between March and
August 2015, Interior Ministry officials banned all visits by families
and lawyers, essentially cutting off the prison from the outside world.

The ban prevented families from delivering much-needed food and
medicine otherwise unavailable in the prison – where there is no
hospital or regular visits from a doctor – and amounted to what
relatives described as a “starvation” policy that left inmates sick and
gaunt.

Between May and October 2015, at least six Scorpion inmates died in
custody. Three of their families agreed to speak with Human Rights
Watch. Two of the men had been diagnosed with cancer and one with
diabetes. Their relatives said that the authorities prevented the men
from receiving timely treatment or medicine deliveries, refused to
consider conditionally releasing them on medical grounds, and failed to
investigate their deaths.

In one case, Interior Ministry authorities refused to provide Essam Derbala, a high-ranking member of al-Gama`a al-Islamiyya (the
Islamic Group), with his prescription diabetes medicine, despite orders
from a judge and prosecutor, Derbala’s brother and lawyer said.

The
authorities refused even after Derbala appeared at an August 2015 court
hearing shaking, semi-conscious, and unable to control his urination.
Derbala died hours after the hearing.

Another inmate, Farid Ismail, a former member of parliament for the
Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, suffered from Hepatitis C
and died in May 2015, after passing out in a hepatic coma inside the
prison.

Aisha al-Shater, the daughter of Muslim Brotherhood deputy supreme
guide Khairat al-Shater, said that when Ismail failed to answer a daily
roll call devised by her father and others in the cellblock during a
period when they were confined to their cells, they told the guards, who
responded that it was “none of their business.” The next day, guards
discovered Ismail unconscious in his cell. He died in an outside
hospital about a week later.

“Afterward, even calling to each other was prohibited,” Aisha
al-Shater said. “So right now, they say, ‘We are in tombs. We’re living,
but we are in tombs.’”

Since the months-long visit ban in 2015, authorities at Scorpion
have continued to arbitrarily ban inmates from meeting their families or
lawyers for weeks or months. They do not allow inmates to meet
privately with their lawyers at any time. Officers, including some
high-ranking Interior Ministry officials, have beaten and threatened
inmates who went on hunger strike to protest conditions and humiliated
and mistreated prominent prisoners during cell searches.

Between Morsy’s overthrow and May 2014, Egyptian authorities
arrested or charged at least 41,000 people, according to one documented
count, and 26,000 more may have been arrested since the beginning of
2015, lawyers and human rights researchers say. The government has
admitted to making nearly 34,000 arrests.

While detainees at other prisons in Egypt have alleged serious
abuses, Scorpion has emerged, not for the first time in its history, as
the central site for those deemed the most dangerous enemies of the
state.

Constructed in 1993 and officially known as Tora Maximum Security
Prison, Scorpion was intended to hold “preventive detainees in state
security cases,” according to the decree that established the prison.

“It was designed so that those who go in don’t come out again unless
dead,” Major General Ibrahim Abd al-Ghaffar, a former Scorpion warden,
said during a television interview in 2012. “It was designed for
political prisoners.”

The National Security Agency of the Interior Ministry, then known as
State Security Investigations, effectively ran Scorpion with
extrajudicial authority, ignoring scores of court orders to lift
arbitrary bans on access.

Today, little seems to have changed in Scorpion, which holds about
1,000 prisoners, relatives estimate. They include most of the Muslim
Brotherhood’s top leadership, alleged members of the Islamic State
extremist group, and various critics of al-Sisi’s government, including
journalists and doctors.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry should immediately end arbitrary visit
bans, ensure regular access to doctors and medical treatment, and
provide prisoners with minimum necessities for hygiene and comfort. The
Egyptian government should allow international detention monitors to
visit Scorpion, and form an independent national committee with the
authority to make snap visits to prisons and other detention sites and
submit complaints to a special prosecutor.

The Egyptian public prosecution should investigate deaths in custody
and charge those with command responsibility for Scorpion in connection
with any acts of torture and cruel and inhuman treatment.

“Egypt’s detention system is overflowing with critics of the
government,” Stork said. “Ending the abuses at Scorpion is a small step
toward improving dire conditions across the country.”

Egyptians from various labor sectors across
Egypt have mobilized in the past few days to pursue improvements in
labor conditions and gainful employment in accord with previous
government decrees.

Protests have been organized by tree planters
outside the Agriculture Ministry in Giza, while demonstrations by
postgraduates demanding employment opportunities have been held outside the Cabinet’s
headquarters in Cairo.

This while authorities continue to jail six Cairo
Public Transport Authority workers - in undisclosed locations - who had planned a strike which was forcefully aborted by police units.

TREE PLANTERS

Dozens
of tree planters who had been hired by the Agriculture Ministry on
temporary contracts protested outside the ministry’s headquarters in the
Dokki district of Giza on Tuesday, demanding full-time contracted
employment and livable monthly wages.

Camelia Saeed, a tree
planter from the Gharbiya Governorate who traveled by bus to Giza with
her coworkers, told Mada Masr that she and the other protesters are only
paid LE 40 per month, just over $US 4.

“That is all we get paid
per month. That is our total wage. There are no bonuses. Some of us have
been employed on part-time contracts for over a decade with the
ministry, with this same monthly wage,” Saeed said.

The
Agriculture Ministry employs around 2,000 tree-planters on temporary
contracts in at least six different governorates. Over the past few
years, many of these precarious laborers have been promised full-time
contracts and a monthly wage of LE 500, which is still less than half
the national minimum wage of LE 1,200 per month.

With
her current salary, Saeed is unable to pay for her basic needs. “I am
50 years old, but my family still has to support me. I cannot provide
for myself, even with LE 500 per month, let alone LE 40, which is a
joke," she said.

Similar protests occurred in March, with
temporary laborers calling for many of the same demands. According to
Saeed however, the history of the labor struggle has a longer trajectory
that has been met with continued intransigence.

“This is not the
first time we’ve protested outside the ministry to demand full-time
contracts and realistic wages and bonuses. I have protested several
times outside the ministry’s gates over the past three years, to no
avail,” she said.

“Like the host of ministers who have come and gone
over the years, since the 2011 revolution, [Agriculture Minister] Essam
Fayed doesn’t do anything about our demands. It’s like playing the same
old broken record, where they promise to grant us full-time contracts
and yet do nothing about it.”

Photos and videos
documenting Tuesday’s protest show dozens of temporary laborers sitting
on the road outside the ministry, with some partially blocking traffic
around the building.

Ministry officials and delegates representing
groups of tree planters from different governorates reportedly were in
negotiations until late Tuesday evening. However, the results have yet
to be announced.

POSTGRADUATE PROTESTERS

Between 200 and 300 postgraduates
from across Egypt descended upon the Cabinet’s headquarters in downtown
Cairo on Tuesday to protest for employment opportunities with the
state.

The gathered protesters chanted and carried signs with
slogans such as, “Postgraduates are unemployed and on the sidewalk,”
“Egypt’s postgraduates are jobless” and “Employ us!”

The
protesters were demanding that the Egyptian state uphold a 2002 Cabinet
decree that allocated administrative posts in the government to public
university postgraduates. Thousands of postgraduates have demonstrated
to enforce the decree since it was issued, subsequently succeeding in
landing government jobs but not guaranteeing employment for future
graduating classes.

Mahmoud Abu Zeid, 25, participated in
Tuesday’s protest outside the Cabinet. Afterward, he told Mada Masr that
the protesters “want to land jobs in the state’s administrative
authorities. We want to help the state with our skills, qualifications
and expertise, wherever our field of expertise is required.”

Abu
Zeid is a Kafr al-Sheikh Governorate resident and was awarded a Master’s
degree in law in 2015. Exasperated, he questioned why postgraduates
must protest every year to ensure the state upholds its own decree
regarding employment.

Delegates representing postgraduates met
with the assistant to the Prime Minister Sherif Ismail’s chief of staff,
according to Abu Zeid.

“We were told that our demands are being
examined, and that we are listed to be employed. As for where or when we
will actually be employed? We have not yet been informed,” he said.

The
young unemployed lawyer said he had been arrested while on his way to a
rally outside the Cabinet’s headquarters in November 2015, subsequently
being held in detention for four days in the Qasr al-Nil Police
Station. Three other postgraduate protesters were arrested the following month, similarly demanding government employment.

CONTINUED DETENTION OF SIX PUBLIC TRANSPORT STRIKE LEADERS

Sixteen political parties and rights groups signed and jointly issued a statement on Tuesday, demanding the release of six Cairo Public Transport Authority (PTA) bus drivers and workers, whom police arrested from their homes on Friday, a day before a planned strike.

The
six workers were the principal organizers of a Saturday PTA strike that
would have coincided with the first day of the new academic year.

However, the planned PTA strike was reportedly obstructed, according to several local media outlets,
by the arrest of the six strike leaders and the noticeable presence of
police forces and officers who had been deployed to the PTA’s many
garages across Cairo and who pressured workers not to strike.

On Sunday, the independent Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS) announced
that it had filed a complaint with the office of the general
prosecutor, demanding that authorities disclose the whereabouts of the
six jailed PTA workers and inquiring into the charges being leveled
against the labor organizers.

The CTUWS is also calling on the
Interior Ministry and the state-appointed National Council for Human
Rights to identify the police station or detention center where the six
PTA workers are being held.

Hundreds of Cairo’s PTA workers have
been threatening to strike to further their demands that include that
the PTA be under the auspices of the Transport Ministry rather than
local governorates, increases in production bonuses by up to 17 percent
of current rates and wage parity with Alexandria’s Public Transport
Authority.

The public transport sector has witnessed repeated
strikes over the last five years around the same demands, leading to
continual negotiations between striking workers and the Transport
Authority.

Ancient Egypt had female rulers sitting on
the throne before the advent of the renowned Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled
nearly 3,500 years ago, with some Egyptologists claiming one woman may
have been a pharaoh around 5,000 years ago.

If this claim is
accurate, Meryt Neith (or Merneith), who lived during ancient Egypt’s
First Dynasty – sometime around 3,000-2,970 BC – may have been the
world’s first female ruler, a title officially held by Kubaba, the
Sumerian queen regnant, who is estimated to have lived and ruled
sometime between 2,500-2,330 BC.

Besides this contentious claim,
there are a handful of royal women who ruled ancient Egypt, and several
others – mothers, wives and daughters – who shared the throne as
co-rulers, queen consorts or queen regents. This typically transpired in
cases where there was a crisis in designating a royal male as the heir
and legitimate successor to the throne.

While Hatsepshut and
Cleopatra are often referred to as being Egypt’s “female pharaohs,”
Egyptologists insist the title isn’t correct.

“They should be
known as women rulers, not pharaohs. Each one of these royal women’s
historic conditions is different, and they held different official
titles,” explains Monica Hanna, an associate professor of archaeology
and cultural Heritage at the Arab Academy for Technology and Maritime
Transport in Aswan.

Associate Professor in Egyptology at the
American University in Cairo Mariam Ayad agrees, asserting that
“pharaoh” is a Hellenized term derived from the ancient Egyptian
“pr-aa,” which first appears in official records from the 19th Dynasty –
circa 1,292-1,189 BC – and onwards.

“Female pharaoh” is a misnomer for
ancient Egyptian “women who ruled in their own right. Some even had
their own titles in the manner of kings,” she adds.

There are only
about four or five royal women who assumed the throne as kings, Ayad
says, and who thus served as the sole rulers of ancient Egypt. These
women, with the exception of Hatshepsut, came to power when there were
no male heirs. “There were queens who identified themselves as kings,
such as Hatshepsut. She donned male regalia, costumes and even the
king’s false beard to depict herself as king.”

But the female
rulers of ancient Egypt were more than just royals who filled gaps in
dynastic succession. Most contributed to construction work, served as
unifying forces, engaged in historic acts of foreign diplomacy, led
expeditions to foreign lands and perhaps also waged wars.

Hatshepsut
is particularly known for her massive construction works that include
temples, obelisks, statues and monuments. She also embarked on
expeditions to the land of Punt – near present day Somalia – while Hanna
says Cleopatra is internationally more renowned in Greek literature.

“Archaeological
excavations have yet to shed further light on the full extent of the
accomplishments of Hatshepsut, Cleopatra and the other historic female
rulers of Egypt. In many cases, this evidence hasn’t yet been
discovered,” Hanna adds.

Cleopatra is Egypt’s most well known
female ruler, even though she wasn’t Egyptian, but ethnically
Macedonian. “She is an integral part of Roman history. Her numerous
affairs, her relations and links to powerful men, along with her
diplomacy and warfare are also widely featured in modern media,” Ayad
says.

The five women who are assumed to have ruled ancient Egypt
as kings, according to Ayad, include: Nitocris of the Sixth Dynasty,
who lived and ruled approximately 4,200 years ago; Sobekneferu of the
12th Dynasty, 3,800 years ago; Hatshepsut of the 18th Dynasty, over
3,400 years ago; Queen Nefertiti of the 18th Dynasty, who may have
assumed a male name and male regalia after her husband’s death, possibly
ruling alone for a few years following the death of Akhenaton, her
husband, around 3,300 years ago; and Tawosret of the 19th Dynasty,
around 3,200 years ago.

Yet, according to Hanna’s count, there
may be as many as eight women who were the sole rulers of Egypt at
various moments. In addition to the five Ayad mentions and Meryt Neith
of the First Dynasty, who may have reigned nearly 5,000 years ago, there
are the female rulers of Ptolemaic Egypt: Cleopatra II, who reigned
briefly as sole ruler over 2,100 years ago, and Cleopatra VII
Philopator, the last and greatest renowned Cleo, who ruler over 2,050
years ago.

That most of these women are not as well known as
Cleopatra and Hatshepsut has prompted Ayad to speculate why they have
been relegated to the footnotes of history. Several of the women in
question ruled during the turbulent endings of dynasties, she observes.

While
it was almost universally perceived that the role of king was reserved
for male heirs, “Hatshesput broke with this tradition, and accordingly
may be perceived to have violated the Ma’at,” the ancient Egyptian
concept of law, order and social harmony, Ayad says.

The king’s
mother, wife and daughter all had their own royal titles, but there was
no specific word for queen. Rather, royal women were defined according
to their relationship to the king, along with descriptors that
emphasized their charm and beauty.

But were the historical
records of these ruling women erased, or intentionally wiped out because
they were women? For example, the statue of Sobekneferu in the Louvre
Museum no longer has a head, which appears to have gone missing.

As for
Hatshepsut, in several instances, her name, titles and images have been
chiseled away. Hatshepsut is depicted as the senior king, while Thutmose
III, her stepson, nephew and male co-regent, appears as a junior ruler.
He subsequently removed her name from many murals.

Hanna says this is likely “the result of personal disputes among royal successors, not because they were women.”

While
ancient Egyptian society was highly stratified and centralized, it was
not particularly sexist or misogynistic, particularly not in the context
of the ancient world.

Some historic studies
indicate noblewomen in ancient Egypt worked as administrators, doctors,
governors, judges, high-ranking priestesses and supervisors. One woman,
identified as Nebet, even served as the vizier, the king’s top advisor or minister, around 4,000 years ago.

Egypt
may have been among the best places to be a woman in the ancient world,
as women had the right to divorce and own property, as well as access
to luxury items, gynecology and healthcare, according to Hanna, who
adds, “The men even washed the clothes at the time.”

___

LIST OF ANCIENT EGYPT'S FEMALE "KINGS"

+MERYT NEITH (or MERNEITH) :
First Dynasty, Old Kingdom. May have reigned circa 2,970 BC. Daughter
of King Djet. Wife and co-regent of King Den. Was buried with
sacrificial items in her tomb, in the royal necropolis of Abydos, where
the first kings of a unified Egypt were entombed. Meryt Neith was also
buried with a solar boat, or sun boat, as was the practice with the very
early “pharaohs.”

+NITOCRIS (or NITIQRET): Sixth
Dynasty, Old Kingdom. May have reigned circa 2,180 BC. Bore the title of
king. May be considered the final “king” of the Sixth Dynasty. The
ancient Greek historian Herodotus claims Nitocris may have killed her
brother, the king, by drowning him.

+SOBEKNEFERU (or NEFERUSOBEK): 12th
Dynasty, Middle Kingdom. Reigned circa 1,806-1,802 BC. The first
ancient Egyptian woman known to be a “king” and the only legitimate heir
to the throne following the death of her brother, King Amenemhat IV.
Listed as the last king of the 12thDynasty. Records frequently note that
she is buried within the Northern Mazghuna Pyramid, near Dahshour.

She rose to prominence as high
priestess, or “God’s Wife,” in the cult of Amun. Acting in the capacity
of a male king, she presided over prolific construction works –
temples, obelisks, statues, and artifacts – along with foreign
expeditions and the reestablishment of foreign trade routes. Built
temples at Luxor (Thebes), including Hatshepsut Mortuary Temple at Deir
al-Bahari, and obelisks at Karnak Temple and the Grotto of Artemis near
Minya.

+NEFERTITI: 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom.
Reigned circa 1,353-1,336 BC or 1,351-1,334 BC, as co-ruler with her
husband, the sun-worshiping King Akhenaton – arguably the first
monotheist, in Tal al-Amarna. Some historians and Egyptologists claim
she may have ruled as king alone for a few years following Akhenaton’s
death.

+TAWOSRET (or TAUSRET): 19th Dynasty, New
Kingdom. Reigned circa 1,191-1,189 BC. Ruled for one to two years, and
appears to be listed as the last king of the 19th Dynasty. She may have
been the stepmother to her predecessor, King Siptah. Was not a very
powerful or influential king, and her turbulent reign may have ended in
civil war. She is buried in the Valley of the Kings.

+CLEOPATRA II:
Ptolemaic Egypt. Reigned circa 170-127 BC. Was not ethnically Egyptian,
but of Macedonian origin. Successor to Ptolemy VIII. This lesser known
Cleo reigned as the sole ruler of Egypt from around 132-127 BC.

+CLEOPATRA VII PHILOPATOR:
Ptolemaic Egypt. Reigned 51-30 BC. The internationally renowned
“Cleopatra,” the historical Macedonian woman reigned as co-ruler with
her brother Ptolemy XIII. Served as Egypt’s sole ruler from around 47 BC
to 30 BC. Had romantic relationships with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony
and was defeated, along with Antony, by the Roman Empire in the naval
Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Allegedly committed suicide the following
year. Cleopatra generally referred to herself as a queen, yet she is
often described as “Egypt’s last pharaoh.”

At least six labor leaders employed by the
Transport Authority were arrested on early Saturday morning after calls
were made for public transport workers to strike.

“Police
arrested several labor leaders, who work in different garages in Imbaba
and Mazalat, at around 6 am on Saturday,” an authority employee who
asked to remain anonymous told Mada Masr, “which pushed the rest of the
workers to continue to resume work operations as normal.”

Public
transportation workers had made several demands, including putting the
authority under the supervision of the Transportation Ministry rather
than local governorates, increasing production bonuses by up to 17
percent of current rates, as well as increasing other types of bonus.

A post
appeared on the Facebook account of strike leader Tarek al-Behairy,
written by his son, early Saturday morning, saying that Behairy was
summoned by national security on Friday night, and his family agreed to
announce his arrest as soon as his phone was switched off.

The
unnamed Transport Authority employee told Mada Masr that there were
several attempts during the last few days to end the workers’ strike
plans, but none resulted in realizing workers’ demands.

"Rumors
started circulating that the authority will agree to our demands, but
we were not officially notified of this. We were not promised anything,”
the employee said. “On Thursday, we were surprised by a decision to
give a financial reward to workers to mark the occasion of receiving new
buses, as well as another reward for excellence, but this did not calm
us down."

Around this time, the employee explained, the
workers developed a new demand to call for the resignation of the
authority’s head, Rizk Abou Ali.

Ali has repeatedly said that
workers wouldn't agree to calls for strikes, describing them as a
“conspiracy aiming to spread strife.”

The independent union for
public transportation workers released a similar statement, congratulating the workers on the new buses and urging them not to respond for calls to strike.

Italian workers, unionists and labor
activists continue protests two weeks after the death of Egyptian worker
Abdel Salam al-Danf in the northern city of Piacenza and other
locations across the country.

Danf was fatally injured on
September 14 by a truck at a General Logistics Services (GLS) plant in
Piacenza, where he was employed and striking to demand that managerial
staff uphold contractual agreements for 13 of his co-workers.

The plant at Piacenza is owned by the parcel delivery company GLS, but is contracted to the SEAM company, which recently sacked over 37 temporary workers.

Staff at the plant say managerial staff urged a driver to use his truck to break the picket line on the night of September 14.

The
53-year-old father of five, who was formerly a teacher in Egypt, was a
member of the USB labor union, and a longtime employee at the GLS plant
in Italy.

The USB union explained on its webpage
that a strike and picket line was organized at the Piacenza plant on
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to demand justice for Danf and
“fight for the recognition of the rights of precarious labor.”

Mario
Cipriani, an Italian video maker and social media journalist, who took
part in the protests, told Mada Masr that strikes are being organized at
Piacenza’s GLS warehouses for the next six days.

Cipriani
explained why Danf’s death is so significant. “Over the past 30 years in
Italy, nobody has been killed during a strike,” he said, adding that
chants and slogans used during protests were: “We are all Abdel Salam”
and “GLS are killers.”

Citing
Alfredo Zampogna, a lawyer for the GLS management, La Repubblica
reported: “The videos in our possession reveal that there was no
incitement” by managerial staff to use the company’s truck to break the
picket line.

It is not yet clear if the Danf family, who have been
long-term residents in Italy, will take legal action against the GLS or
SEAM management at the Piacenza plant.

The hashtag #Abdesselem
was used widely in Italy to commemorate Danf, express solidarity with
his family, and to spread information regarding local protests in the
wake of his death.

Diplomatic relations have been strained between Egypt and Italy since the beginning of this year, when 28-year-old Italian researcher and PhD candidate Giulio Regeni was found dead on a road in one of Cairo’s suburbs on February 3, with his body showing clear signs of torture.

Regeni
had been researching labor issues and Egypt’s independent labor union
movement before his disappearance on January 25th, the fifth anniversary
of the popular uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak.

While it is not clear who is responsible for Regeni’s death, Egypt’s Ministry of Interior has repeatedly denied any responsibility, despite speculation security forces may have been involved.

The UN-affiliated International Labor Organization issued a statement in April, calling on the Egyptian government to “clarify all the facts surrounding the death of Mr. Regeni.”

Shortly after the discovery of Regeni’s body in February, the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) issued a statement
expressing “great sorrow for the killing of the Italian
student,” dismissing claims that Egyptian security forces were involved
in Regeni’s disappearance, torture, or death.

“The ETUF refuses
this harsh attack against Egypt conducted by foreign organizations,
supported by illegal organizations in Egypt, that try to manipulate the
event to disseminate their poisons to attack stability in Egypt,” the
statement asserted.

“ETUF is stressing that Egyptian workers are
fully aware of the plots against their country conducted by foreign or
local plotters,” it continued, adding, “We Egyptian workers are one
front against any illegal organization’s plots.”

DONALDJTRUMP.COM

September 19, 2016

NEW YORK, NY - Donald J. Trump met with Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi in New York today during his visit to the UN General
Assembly. Mr. Trump and President el-Sisi discussed the strategic
bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Egypt focusing on political,
military and economic cooperation between the two countries. The
meeting also included Mr. Trump’s senior advisors, Senator Jeff Sessions
(R-AL) and Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (Ret.).

Mr. Trump thanked President el-Sisi and the Egyptian people for what
they have done in defense of their country and for the betterment of
the world over the last few years. He expressed great respect for
Egypt’s history and the important leadership role it has played in the
Middle East.

Mr. Trump expressed to President el-Sisi his strong support for
Egypt’s war on terrorism, and how under a Trump Administration, the
United States of America will be a loyal friend, not simply an ally,
that Egypt can count on in the days and years ahead.

Mr. Trump emphasized the strong partnership that the United States
and Egypt have shared for so many years and how this relationship is
vital to help promote peace and stability in the Middle East,
broader region and the world. Mr. Trump also expressed his recognition
of Egypt’s close relationship with Israel on countering terrorism.Mr.
Trump highlighted how Egypt and the U.S. share a common enemy and the
importance of working together in defeating radical Islamic terrorism,
not only politically and militarily, but also addressing the ideology.

Mr. Trump emphasized to President el-Sisi his high regard for
peace-loving Muslims and understands that every day there are people of
goodwill that sacrifice their lives and fortunes to combat the growing
threat of radical Islamic terrorism.

Mr. Trump said that if he were fortunate enough to win the election
in November, he would invite President el-Sisi on an official visit to
the United States and would be honored to visit Egypt and the Egyptian
people who he has a great fondness for.

More than one-third of all Saudi-led air raids on Yemen
have hit civilian sites, such as school buildings, hospitals, markets,
mosques and economic infrastructure, according to the most comprehensive
survey of the conflict.

The findings, revealed by the Guardian
on Friday, contrast with claims by the Saudi government, backed by its
US and British allies, that Riyadh is seeking to minimise civilian
casualties.

It will refocus attention on UK arms sales
to Saudi Arabia, worth more than £3.3bn since the air campaign began,
and the role of British military personnel attached to the Saudi command
and control centre, from which air operations are being mounted. Two
British parliamentary committees have called for the suspension of such sales until a credible and independent inquiry has been conducted.

Saudi Arabia
disputed the Yemen Data Project figures, describing them as “vastly
exaggerated”, and challenged the accuracy of the methodology, saying
somewhere such as a school building might have been a school a year ago,
but was now being used by rebel fighters.

The independent and non-partisan survey, based on open-source data,
including research on the ground, records more than 8,600 air attacks
between March 2015, when the Saudi-led campaign began, and the end of
August this year. Of these, 3,577 were listed as having hit military
sites and 3,158 struck non-military sites.

Where it could not be established whether a location attacked was
civilian or military, the strikes were classified as unknown, of which
there are 1,882 incidents.

Saudi Arabia intervened in March 2015 to support the Yemeni government against Iran-backed Houthi rebels
in control of the capital, Sana’a. The UN has put the death toll of the
18-month war at more than 10,000, with 3,799 of them being civilians.

Human rights organisations in Yemen have documented repeated
violations by the Houthis, including the use of landmines and
indiscriminate shelling. Human Rights Watch noted this year that Yemeni
civilians had “suffered serious laws of war violations by all sides.”

The Yemen Data Project has chosen to focus exclusively on the impact
of the air campaign, rather than fighting on the ground, citing the
difficulty of gaining access to frontline fighting and impartial
information.

One of the most problematic findings of the survey for Saudi Arabia
is the number of reported repeat attacks. While some attacks on civilian
sites can be explained away as mistakes or being the location of
military camps in densely populated areas such as Sana’a, repeated
strikes on school buildings and hospitals will add to demands for an
independent investigation.

One school building in Dhubab, Taiz governorate, has been hit nine
times, according to the data. A market in Sirwah, Marib governorate, has
been struck 24 times.
The UK’s shadow defence secretary, Clive Lewis, said of the survey:
“It’s sickening to think of British-built weapons being used against
civilians and the government has an absolute responsibility to do
everything in its power to stop that from happening. But as ministers
turn a blind eye to the conflict in Yemen, evidence that humanitarian
law has been violated is becoming harder to ignore by the day.”

The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson, Tom Brake, said
the data added more weight to calls for the suspension of arms sales.
“Despite consistent evidence showing targeting of civilians, first
Cameron and now May’s governments have continued their hypocritical
defence of Saudi Arabia’s brutal campaign in Yemen,” he said.

Sixty-four members of the US Congress, from the Democratic and
Republican parties, sent a letter to Barack Obama last month urging the
president to postpone sales of new arms to Saudi Arabia. The US also provides the Saudis with intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and logistical support.

The Democratic congressman Ted Lieu, who organised the letter and is a
colonel in the US air force reserve, said: “The actions of the
Saudi-led coalition in Yemen are as reprehensible as they are illegal.
The multiple, repeated airstrikes on civilians look like war crimes.”

Campaigners are calling for an independent inquiry to establish whether
attacks on civilian targets are because of poor intelligence, lack of
precision on the part of the Saudi-led coalition planes, or a high
degree of disregard for civilian lives.

Staff at the Yemen Data Project said they adopted rigorous standards,
using news reports aligned with both sides in the conflict and
crosschecked against other sources, such as social media,
non-governmental organisations and evidence on the ground.

According to the project, the Saudi-led coalition hit more
non-military sites than military in five of the past 18 months. In
October 2015, the figures were 291, compared with 208; in November, 126
against 34; December, 137 compared with 62; February 2016, 292 to 139,
and March, 122 compared with 80.

Over the course of the war, the survey lists 942 attacks on
residential areas, 114 on markets, 34 on mosques, 147 on school
buildings, 26 on universities and 378 on transport.

Asked by the Guardian about the figures during a visit to London, the
Saudi foreign minister, Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, portrayed the Saudi
air force as professional and armed with precision weapons.

He said the Houthis had “turned schools and hospitals and mosques
into command and control centres. They have turned them into weapons
depots in a way that they are no longer civilian targets. They are
military targets. They might have been a school a year ago. But they
were not a school when they were bombed”.

The attachment of British military staff at the Saudi command centre has become increasingly controversial.

A UK Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The United Kingdom is
not a member of the Saudi-led coalition and UK personnel are not
involved in directing or conducting operations in Yemen, or in the
target selection process.

“The MoD does provide training and shares best practice to the Royal
Saudi air force, including training on targeting. We also provided
guidance and advice to support continued compliance with international
humanitarian law.”

The Yemen Data Project was set up this year in response to a lack of
reliable official military figures. It says the project brings together
figures from backgrounds in security, academia, human rights and
humanitarian issues, and describes it as “independently funded to avoid
any partisan affiliation.”

“Where independent reporting is not available, the data has been
cross-referenced with sources from opposing sides to the conflict to
ensure the reporting is as accurate and impartial as possible,” the
project said.

Given the general lack of transparency from parties to the conflict
and a paucity of independent reporting on the ground, the data had been
verified and cross-referenced to the greatest extent possible, it added.

The number of civilian casualties is not included, because much of
this area is highly politicised and it has not been possible to
independently verify claims.

He was crushed by a truck that was trying to force the picket line.
According to the workers, the truck driver was ordered to break the
picket line by the Chief of Staff at the plant.

A strike had been called against the company contracted to run the
plant, the SEAM. The company had fired 37 temporary workers, as well as a
group of workers organized with the USB base union, who were actively
leading struggles on the workplace. SEAM had previously agreed to
re-hire 13 of the workers, but it suddenly rejected the agreement.
Therefore, the workers immediately went on strike and blocked the exit
of trucks from the plant.

The workers testify that they heard the Chief of Staff shouting at
the truck driver “Go, go!” and the driver initially refusing; then,
after the Chief’s insistent order, he started driving in a narrow road
in the wrong direction, at high speed. Eldanf was hit, together with
other two workers, one of them injured. The police was guarding the
protest, but didn’t do anything.

Eldanf – 53 years old, father of five – was born in Egypt, where he
was a teacher. He had been working in the GLS plant for 14 years. He
wasn’t one of the fired workers, he had a permanent contract and was
also waiting for his Italian citizenship. He was there in solidarity
with his comrades.

The Piacenza Prosecutor’s office established that his death was a car
accident, since they deny that there was any strike or protest taking
place at that moment, although police was on site to manage “public
order”. The truck driver is not under arrest, nor, obviously, is the
Chief of Staff who ordered to crush the picket.

Many demonstrations took place in Italy during the day to mourn the
loss of Eldanf. The protesters occupied the railway in Piacenza, while
in Bologna a rally was attacked by the police while they were trying to
get inside the train station. Other demonstrations took place in Pavia,
in Naples and in other cities. The GLS plant in Piacenza in still
blocked. The FIOM union declared a solidarity strike at the Ferrari
plant.

Logistics is a sector that has constantly experienced strong
struggles in the past years, which were always repressed with extreme
violence both by police and by the companies themselves. This is
especially relevant to the area around Piacenza, which has experienced
such episodes in the past. The trucks have been constantly used as a
weapon against pickets, causing many injuries. Many had remarked that
the first victim of this killer practice was just a matter of time.

We, as Struggles in Italy, would like to express our condolences and
offer our solidarity to the family and comrades of Abdelssalam Eldanf.

Prime Minister Sherif Ismail has issued a decree banning
the construction and restoration of all statues, murals and sculptures
in public squares without prior authorization from both the Ministry of
Culture and the Ministry of Antiquities.

Wednesday's decision
comes in the wake of several unusual and poorly-crafted statues that
have reared their ugly heads across the country over the past couple of
years.

Most recently a statue in Sohag,
intended to represent a martyred soldier embracing his mother, was met
with criticism and anger last week as many considered it inappropriate,
and some even suggested that it appeared to be a portrayal of sexual
harassment. The incomplete statue has already undergone modifications.

One of the the most striking of these public artworks was an ill-conceived recreation of Queen Nefertiti’s head in the town of Samalout,
in the governorate of Minya (see image at top right), last year. The
ancient Egyptian queen is internationally remembered, among other
attributes, for her beautiful face and delicate features, but the
Samalout likeness failed to live up to this legacy, earning itself names
such as "Frankenstein."

So
provocative was this version of Queen Nefertiti that Samalout
authorities decided to tear it down in July 2015, after widespread
ridicule on social networking sites.

Another memorably lackluster statue is that of Colonel Ahmed Orabi
Pasha, leader of Egypt’s armed resistance movement (1879-82) against
British forces, erected in the Nile Delta Governorate of Sharqiya. Also
widely mocked, it depicts a green-painted likeness of Orabi riding a
cartoonish white horse, mounted on a multicolored concrete base.

Last month municipal authorities in the village of Hurriyet Razna, Orabi's birthplace, ordered that the whole statue be repainted.

Privately owned Youm7 news portal reports that
Sharqiya authorities may also impose penalties on those who distorted
the statue, and will move to beautify the public square in which it is
found so as “to restore its aesthetic appearance.”

Along the Cairo-Ismailia Desert Highway can be found a public
sculpture of a bronze male athlete flexing his biceps. It was recently
repainted brown, with white paint used just for his hair and swimsuit,
and the result, some say, looks like a statue of an aging man in white underpants.

Social
media filled with derision about the botched paint job, some calling the
statue "a giant in his underwear," while others suggested that it
should be featured in Egyptian underwear advertisements.

There was also the unusually colored statue of popular folk-inspired musician and composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab
in Bab al-Shareya, his birthplace. Its shiny brown suit and golden face
and hands were the subject of criticism early this year, to the extent
that it was reportedly repainted by
school students in February.

Critics were quick to point out that,
despite its makeover, the statue's face more closely resembles that of
the ousted President Hosni Mubarak than Abdel Wahab's.

The fiberglass statue was lightly damaged after falling off its base in January 2014, apparently after several banners tied around it neck led to the statue being blown down during strong winds.

Egypt has approved
the construction of 19 new prisons since January 2011 amid an ongoing
crackdown on freedoms, according to report released on Monday by the
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI.)

The number of prisons has risen in Egypt from
43 to 62 since 2011, when then-president Hosni Mubarak was ousted after a
popular uprising against his rule.

Out of the 19 new prisons, 16 were built during
the reign of Adli Mansour and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, two under the rule
of Mohamed Mursi and one during the transitional period led by the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

According to the report, prisons
across Egypt are bursting at the seams due to “random arrests and unjust
trials, in addition to the unfair laws passed after July 3, 2013,”
when then-Defence Minister Sisi ousted Mursi following mass protests
against the latter's rule.

Hundreds have been arrested for breaking the
controversial assembly law issued during the transitional months under
then-Interim President Mansour. The law imposes restrictions on protests
and stipulates that protesters must obtain a permit from the interior
ministry beforehand.

The report also ascribed the government’s need
for new prisons to the extension of pre-trial detention periods, which
should not exceed two years, according to the law.

Photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, widely known
as Shawkan, is among those who exceeded the legal maximum period in
pre-trial detention, having spent over two years in prison before he was
referred to court in December 2015.

There are no official statistics on the
interior ministry’s website regarding the number of inmates in Egyptian
prisons, but head of the Prison Authority Mostafa Baz said in a
televised interview in May 2016 that the number of prisoners stands at
80,000.

However, a source at the Prison Authority, who
preferred to remain anonymous, told ANHRI that Egyptian
prisoners totaled over 106,000 prisoners, 60,000 of whom are political
prisoners, despite security officials repeatedly asserting that Egyptian
prisons were free of political prisoners and detainees.

According to the report, the post-July 3
period, as well as the period of sectarian violence during the early
1990s, are the only periods during which the number of political
detainees exceeded that of criminal detainees in Egypt.

The report said that the Egyptian regime needs
to recognise the problems that arise from absence of law and
accountability policy, saying that “stability may come through
repression, or through justice and the rule of law, and the latter is
more lasting.”

“The government builds new prisons, detains
larger number of activists, at a time when the country suffers an
economic crisis and is reluctant to build hospitals, schools and public
libraries,” the report read.